Posted
by
Unknown Lamer
on Wednesday June 11, 2014 @12:01PM
from the libertarian-fantasies dept.

Graculus (3653645) writes with news that, as threatened, cab drivers in several European cities mounted a protest against Uber today. From the article: "Uber Technologies Inc., the car-sharing service that's rankling cabbies across the U.S., is fighting its biggest protest yet from European drivers who say the smartphone application threatens their livelihoods. Traffic snarled in parts of Madrid and Paris today, with a total of more than 30,000 taxi and limo drivers from London to Berlin blocking tourist centers and shopping districts. They are asking regulators to apply tougher rules on San Francisco-based Uber, whose software allows customers to order a ride from drivers who don't need licenses that can cost 200,000 euros ($270,000) apiece."
The Guardiancovered the London protest, which ended peacefully 3 p.m..

The reaction is an illegal impedance of traffic, disrupting economic activity and costing millions of dollars. In the United States, peaceful protests are protected speech; physically impeding the movement of any person is not peaceful protest, and you can be arrested if your protest does not part and allow safe passage to all who don't care for your shenanigans. Clogging the streets in protest is, thus, a criminal act; I would be surprised if the UK considered such things legal, rather than an organized

So if I come to your house, stand on the sidewalk, and refuse to let you reach your car so that you can go to work because you work for a disgusting coal power plant that spews radioactive mercury waste into the sky, that's legal?

I thought "where they work" was "the public roadway", meaning it's impossible for people to drive on those roadways to go from their house to their place of work, their place of shopping, a restaurant, and so on.

In the US, you are allowed to have a voice; you are not allowed to restrict the movement of others. You can picket in the streets or in front of businesses or in town square in front of city hall all you want; but when someone wants to pass, you move out of the way. You can raise signs and call

Those pages are about pickets, but refer to laws that cover any demonstration.

Article 11 of the Convention of Human Rights (1998):

(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and to freedom of association with others, including the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

(2) No restrictions shall be placed on the exercise of these rights other than such as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others. This Article shall not prevent the imposition of lawful restrictions on the exercise of these rights by members of the armed forces, or the police, or of the administration of the State.

The important part of this is "for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others." In UK law, use of the highway is considered a legal right. A partial blockage of a road is OK, but a total blockage infringes on the rights of others.

Existing taxi companies lobby for restrictions on the number of cars... No reductions for them, of course. But we have to 'keep the roads clear'.

A LOT of the taxi requirements in many areas* amount to anti-competitive measures along the lines of the rules that ban Tesla from selling cars in many states due to independent franchise requirements.

The fascist control of doctors in America comes indirectly via the American Medical Association. They only accredit so many medical schools, and medical schools can only take so many students. But there isn't a hard limiting of doctors like there is taxi cab drivers via the medallion system.

If you make it so that there are too few taxis in a city it doesn't work, the same if you give a licence to anybody. Too many taxis and you end up with each taxi not making enough for a living.There has to be an equilibrium somewhere. And no sometimes the market does not self regulate, hence laws and regulations. Uber is a taxi system without calling it explicitely a taxi system. It evades the rules and regulations put by the legislator to enforce a viable taxi system. Hence why taxis are demonstrating in l

So the reasonable complaint here would be something like "there'll be too many taxis if their numbers aren't capped somehow" or "the competition here is completely unfair". Insurance (and associated regulation) would mostly be a separate matter, and have very little to

The reason is to create a barrier to entry into the taxicab market so the established players can charge higher fares. That's the only thing those licenses provide. The cab companies are complaining about the system that they themselves set up.

In Europe that isn't even usually the case. In Sweden, one of the countries where Uber is whining about "regulation", the taxi market is deregulated. Anyone can offer taxi services, at any price, providing they meet four basic consumer-protection requirements:

1. They have a commercial driver's license

2. They have commercial vehicle insurance

3. They post their rates openly and visibly

4. They have a functioning meter, which is inspected occasionally to ensure that it is billing the same amount as the posted rates

It also doesn't imply that the driver can drive or anything like that, because the medallion doesn't have to be held by the driver. The driver can be changed out under the medallion by a taxi company. That's why that medallion proves absolutely nothing to the prospective taxi customer, and offers them absolutely no protection.

Something new (i.e driverless Google cars) will come along to threaten their livelyhood.
Wouldn't today be the best time to start evaluating a different way to earn a living?
How many ways can you possibly protest and keep innovation away from people's daily lives?

The license and gov't regulation really is the issue of the "fairness" here. The Taxi industry is highly regulated and licensed, in Europe & the U.S... Taxis & Limos that enter an airport area are highly monitored, and regularly fined if it's found by the monitoring police that the vehicle lacks a current license.

Uber side steps all of this gov't regulation, and, say what you will about that regulation, it is unfair to those drivers who are paying the governments the right to pickup and drop-off pa

I the UK during the early days of cars they had a law:
Secondly, one of such persons, while any locomotive is in motion, shall precede such locomotive on foot by not less than sixty yards, and shall carry a red flag constantly displayed, and shall warn the riders and drivers of horses of the approach of such locomotives, and shall signal the driver thereof when it shall be necessary to stop, and shall assist horses, and carriages drawn by horses, passing the same,

People are said to seek rents when they try to obtain benefits for themselves through the political arena. They typically do so by getting a subsidy for a good they produce or for being in a particular class of people, by getting a tariff on a good they produce, or by getting a special regulation that hampers their competitors. Elderly people, for example, often seek higher Social Security payments; steel producers often seek restrictions on imports of steel; and licensed electricians and doctors often lobby to keep regulations in place that restrict competition from unlicensed electricians or doctors.

Where socialism sought totalitarian control of a society's economic processes through direct state operation of the means of production, fascism sought that control indirectly, through domination of nominally private owners. Where socialism nationalized property explicitly, fascism did so implicitly, by requiring owners to use their property in the "national interest" - that is, as the autocratic authority conceived it. (Nevertheless, a few industries were operated by the state.) Where socialism abolished all market relations outright, fascism left the appearance of market relations while planning all economic activities. Where socialism abolished money and prices, fascism controlled the monetary system and set all prices and wages politically. In doing all this, fascism denatured the marketplace. Entrepreneurship was abolished. State ministries, rather than consumers, determined what was produced and under what conditions.

I find it particularly interesting that not only does Uber do background checks on its drivers and allows the rider to rate the cabbie and cab, it also allows the cabbie to rate the rider, potentially increasing safety for the cabbie in ways that the government model does not and can not. Cabbie murder is a real thing [google.com] and government does not offer a solution. But it's still not surprising that the cartel members are upset that their cartel membership is losing value.

You would think MADD would support deregulation of the taxi industry. Afterall, a big reason people drink and drive is because of the high cost of cabs. It's almost as if they care more about keeping people from drinking them keeping them safe...

People drink and drive mostly in locations where there are not alternatives to driving. I've not really seen many drunk drivers downtown as people walk to the pub. All the drunk drivers I've seen have been in the suburbs. There, taxis cost the same, but the pub is further. It appears that pub density is the problem, not taxi prices.

A couple examples: the slang for rides in NYC is "yellow" for a taxi and "black" for a limo. The limos can pick anyone up but AFAIK can only charge a fixed fee for a given destination. Taxis are metered for time and distance (w/ airport exceptions).

Here in the Boston area, limos are fixed-fee either per hour or per location (airports again), and are barred from being flagged down--they're reservation-only. Taxis can be flagged, but I think they are not allowed to pick *anyone* up if they are outside their designated geographic zone. E.g. pick up in Boston, deliver to Worcester, but not allowed to pick up any ride in Worcester.

So part of the big question is: is Uber a taxi service or a limo service?

Uber offers 2 services. The one that made them popular was operating as a limo service, but cheap, with fast booking and automated account. All the pluses of limo service, but none of the pains for scheduling, tipping, billing, etc. It's just a modernized towncar service without the legacy overhead.

Uber's second service is UberX, which they introduced to compete with Lyft. Same principal as lift applies, in that it's community ride-sharing with some monetary compensation, but backed by Uber's existi

I took a taxi in London in 2005, it cost me $80 for a 15 minute trip. Yes, the exchange rate was bad, but I am sure that it is similar in price today. Yes, I took the underground there but it had closed for my return. Uber would bring competition and potentially lower prices.

In related news, hundreds of thousands of Londoners just found out about Uber.

When you share something you don't charge for it. Uber drivers charge so this is a very simple vehicle/driver for hire setup we commonly call a taxi. If they are a taxi then they must abide by the taxi laws: meters inspected by weights and measures, taxes paid, licensing requirements met. (call them a Limo if you want, the term is irrelevant for most all regulation issues)

To be a "ride share" scenario the driver would have to have already been going to, near to or past the place you want to be. You could pay a little bit of money to cover the cost of fuel for the time the passenger is in the car.

This is all pretty well spelled out in the aviation laws already and my guess will be those laws/regulations will wind up as precedent against Uber/Lyft. As a commercial pilot you may charge whatever price you can for flying a passenger to a destination. As a private pilot you may only share a minority of expenses with the passenger and not make any profit. Ex: if it costs $50/hr to fly your plane then you can share that cost with the passenger up to $25/hr. The passenger must also have a common destination/purpose. I suppose you could itemize your charges as $25 for flight sharing, $200 for valet service on the airport ramps but due to oversight and licensing I don't know any pilot that would risk that maneuver.

So let's apply those same tests to the Uber/Lyft services:

Cost to operate a vehicle: in the range of $.12 to $.25 per mile, Uber rate: ~$1.50 per mile, 6 times the actual operating cost:
cost share: failCommon destination/purpose: The driver's goal is to get the passenger to the destination, the driver has no business at the destination:
common purpose: fail

While I agree Uber and similar services are skirting and even openly defying regulations, these protests are self-defeating. The public will see the cab drivers as greedy and annoying.

Uber needs to simply sit back and do nothing about it. The less said the better.

In the U.S. these protests won't happen, unless the owners pay the drivers to protest. American cab drivers can't afford to take a day off to protest. The cab drivers are probably making less than the Uber drivers..

Actually, my office is right across the street from Uber's Boston HQ. A couple weeks ago I suddenly heard a mad chorus of car horns. Looked out the window and it turns out the Boston cabbies were staging a brief rolling protest by driving by and honking, handing out leaflets, etc. There was police and a news truck.

I don't know what the situation is in Europe, but in many cities in the US the taxi industry is a victim of its own protectionism. Boston, for instance, has issued a fixed number of taxi medal

Uber exists because taxi service in San Francisco sucks, big time. Anywhere Uber is catching on, they're filling a public need. Customers are not property: if your competition does a better job serving them, you SHOULD be out of business.

If Uber were really offering legitimate competition, I would be more sympathetic. But they're partly undercutting existing taxis through ridiculous things like using drivers who lack commercial vehicle insurance, which is rather irresponsible.

It appears that Londoners were adopting Uber rapidly when all the taxis went away to protest.

the reality is that the cat is out of the bag. If Uber stop existing, it won't alter the fact that ad-hoc ride calling schemes will continue to exist legal or not, because the technology exists and is ubiquitous.

Lawmakers would be wise to work with the real worlds, rather than against it. But they don't generally do that, so it'll be messier than it needs to be.

Regulation is fine. Insist that Uber drivers have commercial insurance. An insurance company will offer "uber insurance" for a few extra euros and they'll make some money and the public will be safer. Uber could even partner with an insurer to make that happen more quickly and smoothly. But there's no reason you need a 200k euro license to drive people around.

Because we routinely hold people who engage in some activity for profit to a higher standard than those that do it for fun. It's the difference between flying yourself and running an air taxi, between having friends over for dinner and opening a restaurant.

If insurance is your only beef, then like sibling said - most insurance companies can offer an "Uber" rider for a couple extra pounds/euros each month, and that's that.

Otherwise, I do have a question: why the demand for "commercial insurance" in the first place? If you and your rider get in a wreck, you're the driver, and would theoretically face the exact same liabilities as a commercial driver would - prolly less, since the plaintiff would be more likely to jack up the monetary demands against a commercia

well here in Scotland a taxi driver has to be vetted for criminal records etc, then licensed. If he is an owner/driver then his car has to be passed through a "TAXI MOT"(MOT being an annual test for all cars here BUT this one is more stringent).
Also there is specific commercial insurance.... to suggest otherwise is just plain fucking ridiculous, seriously fucking ridiculous.
For vehicles used for commercial/business application, most especially passenger transportation, then specialised commercial insura

Also, their coverage is considerably higher (in dollar amount) than commercial taxis in major cities. Uber provides this for their drivers.

$1m isn't enough. Most commercial taxis are run by companies which have other assets besides 1 taxi which might be involved in a major accident. They usually have more taxis, the taxi license (which can be sold for a high price, about $1m each in NYC), an dispatcher office somewhere, etc. They also have other sources of income- if one taxi is destroyed and the driver disabled, the others still generate income. If their insurance only partly covers an accident, they can pay it off using the income from the other taxis, sell some of their (considerable) assets, get a business loan, etc.

Compare this with Joe Blow with his 1 car, 1 employee (himself), and no other significant assets. Let's assume a very serious accident involving multiple cars with multiple injuries. At best, Joe escaped the accident unharmed, and only has to buy a new car. More likely, Joe himself was probably injured in the serious accident, can't work for several days/weeks/months, and has his own medical bills to pay. His "normal" vehicle insurance won't chip in for Joe's injuries since it doesn't cover commercial use of the vehicle. The passengers' medical bills exceed $1m, which can easily happen in a very serious accident. What recourse does the passenger have? They have huge bills to pay and need to recover damages from someone, but Joe Blow might very well be destitute. Uber keeps their drivers at arms length so recovering from them is unlikely. The passenger gets screwed and has little legal recourse against a destitute Joe. Getting a $20 check from Joe every month for the next 50 years isn't going to pay their huge medical bills.

Even though the commercial taxi company has less insurance, the passenger is better protected against out of pocket accident costs.

As opposed to getting hit by john on his way home with the minimum required insurance. That's a whole 10k for property damage and $25k medical in my state. Which has been the same for quite some time. The numbers seem a little outdated to say the least. Anything past a bent bumper and broken arm and you probably have to sue him anyway:(

Something seems a bit shady with them but it probably isn't the insurance issues. Of course the taxi business seems a bit odd on its own when they only allow X number or Y c

Yes, if these are people who's job it is to drive people around in order to make money then that is a limousine or taxi service and it should be regulated the same way.... but $270,000 license fees sound more like glorified bribes to prevent competition than something close to a legitimate license fee.

If the taxi drivers were protesting the absurd license fees, then I would be more sympathetic.

On the other hand if part of the uber service is simply a better way of matching people for sharing the costs of carpooling and ride sharing, then that is a service that is sorely needed and really isn't a taxi or limousine service.

but $270,000 license fees sound more like glorified bribes to prevent competition than something close to a legitimate license fee.

I don't know where the article got that number from. In London, a taxi driver license incurs fees of a few hundred dollars. And a Taxi vehicle license is less than a hundred. Perhaps they are quoting the cost to be a licensed taxi operator (the company that runs many taxis).

(NB: Uniquely, London does require potential Taxi drivers to know all the streets, important locations and routes for central London. A monumental feat of memorisation that generally takes 2-5 years of hard work to complete, buzzing around the city on a scooter. Called "Doing The Knowledge". So it's certainly hard to become a taxi driver there. It's far more of a bar then the costs.)

If Uber were really offering legitimate competition, I would be more sympathetic. But they're partly undercutting existing taxis through ridiculous things like using drivers who lack commercial vehicle insurance, which is rather irresponsible.

Is it?

The fact that commercial vehicles must have said insurance by law doesn't mean it's actually necessary even for them. In many cases, those sorts of legal requirements are imposed not because they're actually necessary per-se, but because they establish obstacles to entry of service providers into the market, and aren't obviously arbitrary. They are arbitrary, just not obviously arbitrary.

In a market where information is highly asymmetric, establishing arbitrary obstacles to entry is actually a use

Some of the other problems are nonsense, too. Background checks are social: if your cabbie is a rapist, you can report that; if you disappear in transit, there are records of where your phone was and what cab drive you had. Service is, likewise rated rather than a company promise; and they use GPS to track distance. Most of these mechanisms are satisfactory to the average user, and out of the control of the driver and passenger alike.

Sounds like a problem for insurance companies, not the government. What is the difference between the two kinds of insurances except for the price? If you drive someone "occasionally" should your insurance really cost as much as the full commercial insurance does?

But they're partly undercutting existing taxis through ridiculous things like using drivers who lack commercial vehicle insurance, which is rather irresponsible.

That's not true for the countries these demonstrations are in. For example in Britain all Uber drivers and cars are required to be licensed as "Private Hire" drivers and cars (2 separate licenses.) In order to get the private hire car license, you must present the certificate of commercial insurance to the local council.

Uber's competition in Britain at least is completely legitimate. They are obeying the law. And the department that issues licenses for London have come out and said as much.

It's generally riskier for the insurance company. People who offer transportation services for a fee have heightened liability to passengers (which is passed on to the insurance) than people who are driving friends/family. They also typically have a higher risk of incurring a payout in a given year.

Vehicle insurance is a fairly competitive market, and most of the rates are set pretty straightforwardly by actuaries.

How is me driving with a stranger more likely to result in an accident than me driving with a friend? If you think my friend is more predictable, you don't know my friends.

Also, the "higher risk" is mostly due to commercial drivers driving ALL the time while "normal" drivers will only do so when they need the car, i.e. the higher risk is due to them being on the road far more often and far longer. The cab driver would not go to the passenger's destination if it wasn't for the passenger wanting to go there.

You are assuming that Uber drivers only go places they would go anyway. Numerous previous stories indicate otherwise. So drivers are on roads they may not know with a stranger they may not be comfortable with next to them, who may be talking on the phone or doing other things typically done in a cab. Plus the odds of having a passenger are higher, and you are less likely to know their past medical issues, and they are more likely to take you for all they can get than a friend would be.

I'm not an actuary, but those all seem like things that would result in higher premiums to me. And that excludes flat-out higher liabilities for commercial drivers.

And they are lobbying their governments to keep that privileged access. Being undercut by a cheaper competitor is certainly competition.

Party A plays by the rules and therefor has higher costs. Party B does not play by the rules and has lower costs. Party A is angry at the unfairness of this situation. I agree that the rules are dumb, but unfairness rankles me more. Either Uber buys taxi licenses for its drivers or we abolish taxi licenses. Until then, the should both play by the rules.

And they are lobbying their governments to keep that privileged access. Being undercut by a cheaper competitor is certainly competition.

Party A plays by the rules and therefor has higher costs. Party B does not play by the rules and has lower costs. Party A is angry at the unfairness of this situation. I agree that the rules are dumb, but unfairness rankles me more. Either Uber buys taxi licenses for its drivers or we abolish taxi licens

I am hardly wholly sympathetic to the taxis; but there is one important aspect that is often elided in the hagiographic "Hail Uber, destroyer of corrupt taxi monopolist cartels!" pieces: In regulated markets, taxi operators are subject to a variety of rules, some of them costly (insurance, metering accuracy consumer protection stuff, getting the much-coveted and supply limited taxi medallion in the first place), that Uber is just too hip and 'disruptive' to bother with.

If you wish to adopt the 'bring on the competition and let the cards fall as they may" view, it is an imperative that the existing taxi providers be released from the assorted regulatory burdens that Uber just ignores. Failure to do so is, in effect, a substantial subsidy to Uber under the guise of 'competition'.

If you take the position that taxi regulations exist for good historical reasons, founded on what happened before there were such regulations, it is similarly imperative to keep them from being flouted by assorted twee distinctions-without-difference "Oh, this isn't a taxi, it's an independent entrepreneur(who just happens to be hardwired directly into our business' software systems; but never you mind that, having 'employees' might expose us to obligations) offering social ridesharing!".

Regardless of whether you prefer the status quo, or would prefer to set the status quo on fire, anyone who does abide by taxi-related regulation and has to compete with people who don't has a very legitimate grievance. Whether that ought to be resolved by eliminating that regulation or extending it is a different matter; but either position still leaves the existing taxi guys getting the short end of the regulatory situation as it is now.

Uber handles the insurance issue by providing it themselves. They insure their drivers for $1 million.

It's perfectly reasonable to extend regulations for vehicle safety/inspections, posted notices, etc to Uber drivers, but the taxi drivers aren't protesting Uber because of public safety, they're protesting because Uber drivers aren't bothering to play the medallion game. That I have no sympathy for.

I'm looking at it from a bottom-up perspective. You're looking at it as "industry exist, industry is regulated, therefore anyone who wants to do something similar should be regulated exactly the same way." I'm looking at it as "why do we need the regulation that exists? What justifies each specific regulation? Are those justifications sufficient to reasonably support the regulation? What is the definition of a "taxi service" and how does it apply to Uber?"

Also, a correction to your statement: Uber is NOT giving anyone a ride. Uber is a middleman service. They don't employ any of the drivers. By your logic, anyone who organizes a carpool is a taxi service and subject to the same onerous regulations that a taxi service is. If that means paying exorbitant amounts of money to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars for a "taxi license" then so be it. Don't like it? Don't set up a carpool or vanpool.

you think Uber is breaking laws about competition but it's not a "scam"

Uber may be breaking laws or violating rules

right...

in money/business when someone breaks laws or violates rules at the harm of others...

it's a scam

if I'm so wrong, show me a definition of scam that proves me wrong

also, it doesn't matter...you agree that Uber is breaking laws and getting away with it...no matter what you're agreeing with my central point...this is entirely a conversation over a definition of a word...you a

Not a better method! Don't take my JARRRRB. Lets pass laws to keep inefficiencies in the market so I don't have to adapt! Its almost like a whole new MPAA or RIAA. Seriously people. New business models are GOOD.

Either Uber plays by the current laws, or we free the current taxi companies from those same laws. Allowing one group to legally operate under different (and cheaper) laws because they are newcomers is pretty unfair. In my city, both taxis and Uber use a smartphone app to dispatch and have up-front flat rates, yet they are regulated differently and I think that sucks.